Rome, 20 August 2014
100th Anniversary of Foundation of the PF
Dearest Sisters,
Let us offer our thanks and praise to God as we celebrate the Centenary of the Society of St. Paul and, as a result, the planting of a small seed that would grow into a huge tree with ten branches that have extended to all the continents.
May we make the most of the prayer vigil outline sent to all our communities by the Centenary Commission, using it to contemplate the abundant riches poured out on us by God the Father so as to praise and thank him, and also draw up a balance sheet of the journey we have made, admitting our infidelities and looking to the future with renewed trust. We are a Family–the Pauline Family! Let us pray that we will deepen even more profoundly our desire to fulfill our existence as a Family–a very special Family that sprang from the heart of God and Blessed James Alberione. Let us pray that this rich legacy will be lived and transmitted always more effectively, going beyond the problems and misunderstandings of the past that slowed down our efforts to evangelize and at times wounded our communion.
Our Founder said: “Each Institute was born to complete the others.” None of the Pauline Congregations, including our own, is fully itself if it does not participate in this charismatic plan. In the light of the Eucharist, let us see to it that the invitation of our Founder to think, program and work from the perspective of Family, as members of a single body, resounds in a new way.
Let us allow the plea for salvation that humanity is raising to God at this time in history penetrate us profoundly. Humanity today, as was true way back in 1914, is tormented by war and hammered by violence. Its ideals have been shattered and its points of reference have weakened. Our charism of evangelization unites us to those who are poorest, to the suffering and to the marginalized. It urges us to pray, offer ourselves and live in communion with the sufferings of a multitude of our contemporaries and above all with the dramatic situation of Christians and other minorities in Iraq. Together with all people of good will, let us make our own the insistent, impassioned cry of Pope Francis, who in these days calls everyone to prayer:
The news reports coming from Iraq leave us in dismay and disbelief: thousands of people, including many Christians, driven from their homes in a brutal manner; children dying of thirst and hunger in their flight; women abducted; people massacred; violence every kind; destruction of historical, cultural and religious heritages. All this gravely offends God and humanity. Hatred is not to be vented in the name of God! War is not to be waged in the name of God! …Let us silently pause and pray.
May we too silently pause and pray, asking the Lord to forgive us for the estrangements and divisions that at times have wounded our communities and the Pauline Family. In this crucial moment of history, we feel urged to discover and transmit “the ‘mystique’ of living together, of mingling and encounter, of embracing and supporting one another…. To go out of ourselves and join to others…” (EG 87). It is a plea that has the flavor and savor of prophecy, the power and grace of the inspiration of our Founder, who wanted all of us–religious and laity–to be a single body striving to reach our huge “parish,” the whole world.
Warmest best wishes to our Pauline brothers, to all of us, and to all the Institutes that little by little came into being to constitute this admirable Family. With deep affection,
Sr. Anna Maria Parenzan
Superior General
